Nonstandard Monday
Today has been a long spectacular hurtle that even almost six years with hellhounds ill-prepared me for. I am expecting to fall off my chair and lie on the floor moaning and twitching feebly . . . probably before I finish this blog. I can possibly semaphore to Darkness what buttons to press to hang it* but I do not guarantee my usual elegant peroration and epigrammatic finish.**
I was so unnerved by Oisin’s praise last Friday that I’ve hardly known how to practise. This is that old ‘something to lose’ thing. The great thing about beginnings is that you don’t know how yet. It’s all good. Once you start learning anything . . . you have somewhere to fall. Down. It’s very frustrating having no particular talent—or in this case, voice—but it’s also liberating. I don’t have to take it seriously. I can obsess, because I will obsess, frivolously. La la la la la la. And (for better or worse) it’s not like I’ve discovered my inner Beverly Sills or anything.*** But there are increasing numbers of (fleeting) moments when there is maybe even something going on with my singing . . . and occasionally, thrillingly, a few of these moments string themselves together. It’s not the high F in Che Faro—F is not high—it’s the terrifying sticking your head above the parapet. This is your big moment . . . Noooooooo. Eeeeeeeeep. And I tend to sing it accordingly.† Plus that ratbag ‘ben’ you have to sing it on, which is not singer-friendly and which does not help. The other song I particularly wanted to look at is The Minstrel Boy—yes, I am a sap, sue me—because I start the run up to that first (unhigh) F without much trouble and it’s like ‘okay I can do this’ and then on the second run up to that same F I lose my nerve and get all thin and squeaky. I think it’s something about emotional engagement—you may remember that this song got mixed up with Diana’s death for me—and it’s like suddenly, whoa, uh, no, maybe not. But I love the song. I want to sing it. Singing is so frelling revealing, even when you do it badly. Your Blasted Body Is Your Blasted Instrument, Get Used to It. Um. And I don’t know what Nadia did—I never know what Nadia did, even though she tells me††—but my last go through was rough and raw and rather awful, but there was something there, you know? My problem is mostly about shutting down. This was about opening up to the extent that I could no longer control it. Speaking of eeeeep. Eeeeeeep.
The day was already going a lick. I’d got down to the mews late (of course) and had my head down over my computer slightly longer than I should have and thus fed hellhounds lunch slightly later than I should have. But they were milling around my feet looking for Mysteriously Dropped Chicken Bits Oops so I (foolishly) wasn’t expecting trouble. Whereupon Chaos decided not to eat. This was absolutely classic Chaos—he was clearly hungry, it wasn’t that he’d picked up some bloody tourist’s dropped chicken bones in the street yesterday—but some frelling ritual or other for a Monday in an even-numbered year when Aldebaran is in the ascendant and Jupiter aligns with Mars had been left incomplete. ARRRRRGH. At slightly after the last minute he ate after all YAAAAAAAY, and we then tore back to the cottage because I had an errand to run on my way to Nadia†††.
I was at best going JUST to make it back to New Arcadia for Niall to pick me up and blast off to Curlyewe. But I made it. And then we sat outside the Curlyewe church for fifteen minutes because our handbell apprentices were late.‡
We rang handbells till people started showing up for tower practise. And then I grabbed my new tower. And . . . the worst of it is, I like Curlyewe. Nice bells. Very nice bells. And, furthermore, eight of them. We rang Grandsire Triples.‡‡ The last thing I need is another Monday tower that is, furthermore, too far away.
And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to fall out of my chair.
* * *
* No, you’re wrong. If I can learn to circumvent the WordPress gremlins and hang a blog post . . . so can a moderately intelligent dog.
Of the local selection, Darkness is the one who is willing to find problems outside his immediate self-focus interesting. Chaos . . . not so much. Chaos does not speak the standard human-canine language. There certainly are days when I shout YOU ARE THE DUMBEST ANIMAL I HAVE EVER MET . . . but I’m speaking to myself.^ Sighthounds have been bred for thousands of years^^ to make their own decisions. They can’t be asking you for help when they’re flat out after a gazelle. This has its drawbacks in modern urban life. Darkness, however, is clearly trainable as most of the world understands dog training, and I am a Bad Owner because I am neglecting this because I don’t know what to do with his brother. Chaos has his own view of the structure of the universe and while I am the centre of it—more theatrically so than I am Darkness’ holy altar of all—manifestations of his zealous dedication are his own and not particularly open to negotiation or adjustment.^^^
Anyway. If this post ends abruptly and there are a few short dark steely-grey hairs drifting across the margins, you know why.
^ Today, for example. I had a major hissy fit meltdown this afternoon—worst in some time. Worst since I started singing when my computer is really pissing me off because screaming hurts my voice. + The cause is that most of my ME symptoms, barring the really life-stopping no-brain, what planet is this, no-energy, never mind I don’t care worst ones, have all come back in a mean-spirited rabble, as a result of . . . wait for it . . . my daring to eat a little restaurant food with Fiona the other night. I ordered carefully, it was a small meal and there was nothing in it I’m not allowed.++ All my joints hurt, sleep is something that happens to other people, and anything I eat makes me ill. THIS IS SO GREAT. THIS IS SO, SO, SO GREAT. I was running upstairs at the cottage just before I shot off to a long rest-of-day series of events and one of my frelling knees gave out and I had suddenly Had. It. Paroxysm ensued, complete with radical and substantial screaming. This was right before my voice lesson. It’s also a really idiotic waste of energy, when you already have ME.
I’ve never met a dog this stupid.
+ I admit this works better some times than other times. There was a fair amount of shouting at the Metropolitan Opera last night.
++ Okay, what was in that tea bag?
^^ No, really. Salukis have been around recognisably since 7000 BC or so. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saluki
^^^ See: eating.
** What?
*** All right. I admit it. Siiiiiiigh.
† Siiiiiiigh. Another category of sigh.
†† Except occasionally. When she invokes Teacher Secrets.
††† My watchband broke. Months ago. It’s a perfectly good watch. And they don’t make watchbands for it any more. Finally about the third jeweller I took it to said that she thought their repairpersons could do it. And they did. But it still doesn’t close correctly and I predict the mend is not going to last long. Then what.
And so to cheer myself up, on the way back to Wolfgang, I made a lightning raid on WH Smith and bought . . . five knitting magazines. Just to see what they’re like, you know? The one I was looking for was Vogue Knitting, because they keep trying to sell me a subscription to my iPad, and I have this nostalgic craving to see it in hard copy first.^ On first glance, VK wins hands down for the yarn porn aspect.
I need more stuff to read.
^ One of the ones I bought is American, so it’s not that imported knitting magazines are too subversive for the UK market.
‡ It’s okay. I was knitting.
‡‡ Only a plain course. But something went Horribly Wrong and I thought nooooooo I can’t even ring a plain course any more, kill meeeeee, but Niall told me afterward it wasn’t me, it was someone else. Well, I’m sorry for the someone else, but I’m relieved to be permitted to go on living. Even if I did make a, ahem, dog’s dinner of Cambridge.
Meteorological Mayhem
Hellhounds and I put Cathy on the train in Mauncester this morning.* Hellhounds and I then headed farther out, to Warm Upford, to check on the bluebell situation. And the heavens opened. Sweet bleeding demiurges, I thought it had been raining before. This was the solid wall of water variety, coming down so hard you not only can’t see out of your windscreen, but you wonder uneasily if it’s going to dent your roof and rip your windscreen wipers off. You’re going at 20 mph because you can’t see . . . and then you fall into the Mississippi River, SPLASH, and here you thought you were in southern England and what the frell happened to the frelling levees?** Fortunately Wolfgang is equipped with an amphibian button from his secret life as a stunt car for James Bond, and so we swam to shore and continued on our way, which had become brown and given to whirlpools. We were the second car behind a monster lorry, and when it hit a road-flood I swear the bow-wave was taller than Wolfgang. This kind of downpour doesn’t last, I told myself, clinging valiantly to the steering wheel, and indeed it didn’t, it slacked off to mere sheeting between onslaughts of cannonball rain. We got out to Warm Upford and turned around despondently to come back by another route and . . . there was suddenly and unexpectedly this astonishing manifestation called ‘blue sky’.*** I pulled Wolfgang over at the first opportunity and hellhounds and I got out for a sprint. A wet sprint. A very wet sprint. A very, very wet sprint. A very, very, very wet sprint. A . . . .†
I had a concert to go to tonight. In Frellingham. Arrrgh. Frellingham is about forty-five minutes from here. Nina lives there now, and she emailed me a while ago about the schedule at the little concert venue a few blocks from her and her bloke’s new house. We had agreed that tonight’s visitation looked amusing: a ragtag collection of old folk-hippie musicians who have (apparently) banded together against the encroachment of electro-techno alternative art prog dance-punk-metal experimental grungehorror cyberthrash, and gone on tour. Nina had bought tickets. Hellhounds and I got back from our wet sprint, and having used up sixteen towels getting half dry, I emailed poor Nina in a bit of a panic saying I’m not driving to Frellingham in this.
It cleared off. Sort of. Comparatively.††† Hellhounds and I only got semi-wet on the afternoon hurtle, and the wind wasn’t blowing more than 80 mph except for the occasional gust, so I slid a few extra lead weights into the special James Bond slots under Wolfgang’s chassis†† and we went.
The concert was . . . amusing.‡ Sometimes it is a good thing to be reminded that your youth is something you get to grow out of. And I only got slightly lost on my way to Nina and Ignatius’ new house—I’ve only been there once before and which way you go on the unmarked roundabout(s) may take a little while to lodge in the memory.
Tomorrow . . . reality bites. And SHADOWS reign.‡‡
* * *
* Waaaaaah. But . . . pretty much everything about the timing of this visit sucked dead (you should forgive the term) bears. She was supposed to be coming after I had finished and handed in SHADOWS.^ She was supposed to be coming after I was caught up to Hamaker New Thing Monkeywrench #s 1 and 2.^^ She was also supposed to be coming here to have long walks through the countryside and, it being bluebell season, she would not only see bluebells, but we might possibly get a hellgoddess and hellhounds surrounded by bluebells photo.^^^
No. None of the above. But she did see baby robins. And we lay on the folded-out sofa at the cottage with a plethora of hellhounds# and watched WONDERFALLS## on the Shiny Two-Ton No Longer New Entirely Rebuilt Ex-Lemon### Laptop, thus proving it can do something right.~ Also, that bartender is hot.~~ And the rain drummed on.
^ And was far enough along on the doodle backlog that you could actually get into my office again. Not, I suppose, that she needed to get into my office, but it’s easier to browse my F&SF shelves, which are what live (mostly+) in my office, from within arm’s length than . . . not within arm’s length.
+ There’s a wall of homeopathy too. Which is why SF&F spills into the bedroom.
^^ When in fact I’m writing ep 12 and it’ll be another one or two before we get to HNTM one. We started #3 while she was here anyway.
^^^ Instead she drank a lot of tea out of my bluebell mug+, since that was as close as she was going to get. Well, there are a few bluebells in my garden, but given the, ahem, lushness of the planting out there, you’d get just as soaked going to look at them as if you went and found some wild ones.
+ http://www.emmabridgewater.co.uk/flowers/bluebell-12-pint-mug/invt/ngbb002/
Hmph. It’s got more expensive since I bought mine.
# They expand to fill available space. I’ve noticed this before.
## http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wonderfalls
### She says with dramatic emphasis.
~Including, evidently, playing a region 1 DVD. I am so clueless about all of this.
~~ So is Beth.
** Ask George W. Bush.
*** It was still raining, of course. This is southern England^. It rains out of blue sky all the time. But it doesn’t usually rain the pummelling you all over your body kind of rain out of blue sky. Usually.
^ Unless it’s the Mississippi delta.
† And I’m afraid the rumours that it’s a bad year for bluebells appear to be true. There aren’t as many flower stalks at all, it seems to me, and the ones there are have four or six little bells per, and usually you get twelve or fifteen. Aside from the tricky questions about taking photos in the rain, if I can’t find a better forest floor of them, there won’t be bluebell photos this year. I have a couple more places to try, but I’m not too hopeful. That was my best bluebell sea today.
†† Very bad for mileage, but they do keep you on the road.
††† I’ve just had a frelling email from frelling Cathy saying it was beautiful and clear all day where she was on the south coast. WELL ISN’T THAT SPECIAL.
‡ There wasn’t a single person there under forty. There was also way too much khaki hemp^ and Birkenstocks, but I lowered the level as much as I could in a salmon-coloured turtleneck and All Stars and a watermelon-coloured pullover. My frameless glasses are against me though.
^ No, no, not that kind of hemp.
‡‡ And New Thing gets a nice padded footstool.
Wet wet wet
It’s okay. I can write a blog tonight. Darkness ate dinner. *&^%$£@#~}+!!!!!!!!!!! Cathy, on the other side of the table, is breathing a deep sigh of relief. She’d made the perilous, not to say fatal, offer to write another guest blog if I found myself incapable on account of the extreme reprehensibleness of hellhounds and the resultant need to wail and rail incessantly all evening.* Which is to say, Darkness stopped eating. Yesterday.
I know, I know (and you regular readers know, you know). Normal dogs—well, normal sighthounds—miss meals occasionally. It’s not a big deal. It’s a big deal with these guys because of their history. And it’s a big deal to me because I’m the human supposedly in charge of managing they survive their history. And they are a lot better, about food, about eating food, and about stopping eating (food) and about looking like they’re at death’s door after about twenty-four hours of not eating. And I may have an ever so slight tendency to hit red alert before it’s absolutely necessary. But. . . .
If you graphed hellhound appetites and the amount of food I actually manage to get in them, the lines would swing up and down wildly anyway, like the surface of Lake Superior just before the Edmund Fitzgerald went down. I’m used to this. I don’t frelling like it, but I’m used to it. Occasionally, however, one or both hellhounds ship a really big wave and head for the bottom. If I hadn’t been distracted by having fun with Cathy—because I am an irresponsible dog owner and a horrible selfish thoughtless human being—I might have noticed that the current oh-well-maybe-I-will-and-maybe-I-won’t food mood was hardening into something more drastic. It had crossed my mind that the current lack of enthusiasm phase was going on a little long.
AND THEN . . .
It has not been a good day. Today was our last chance to get out into the country and look at bluebells. And it rained. Again. It’s been raining all week. It was raining when I picked Cathy up at the train station.** It was raining as we both arrived at and left the abbey.*** It was raining most of Sunday in both Hampshire and Bristol, although Cathy managed to find a little sunlight and follow it around for a few hours. It rained on my voice lesson.† It rained on our going to Glaciation to ring with Colin. It rained on our trip to Mauncester yesterday.†† IT’S BEEN RAINING FOREVER. IT IS GOING TO RAIN FOREVER.††† It is just about hip deep around town and squelching out over the countryside when Cathy only has two pairs of shoes with her is not really a credible option.
AND THEN DARKNESS STOPPED EATING. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAUGH.
It has not been a good day.
But Darkness ate dinner. Enthusiastically. So I can revert to being all wet and soppy and droopy and soggy, not about the rain, but about the fact that Cathy is leaving tomorrow. . . .
* * *
* The deep sigh of relief may have been as much to do with the lack of incessant wailing and railing as the fearful prospect of coming up with another 1000+ words that could pass for a coherent synthesis of some damn thing or other only two days after the previous guest blog.
** It had only just started raining (again), fortunately, since I was late. Of course I was late. I’m always late. And then we had to hare off at extreme speed for the Reification of the Overgoddess at Forza. I have rung my first service at Forza del Destino.^ Eeep. This blood-freezing adventure began last Wednesday, when Ulrich said at practise that it was an all-hands-to-the-pumps situation Saturday afternoon for the reification. I looked away and shuffled my feet because I am not, after all, an abbey ringer, but Gemma said, oh, go on, I’m going to. So I checked with Cathy about train times and then, in fear and grovelling, although it’s difficult to get grovelling across in an email, I wrote to Ulrich, asking if they still needed extra hands for the reification, and he wrote back pretty much by return electron saying they’d be happy to see me. Oops. Now I’m for it.
In fact they didn’t need all of us shmo-level ringers, but they were nice enough to pile us all on for rounds on forty-eight. And Og came by with his clipboard and said to me, smiling in what I’m sure he was under the impression was a friendly manner, You are now on my LIST.
I may have a bell tower again. That is, I admit, may. I’m still expecting them to pull themselves together and bounce schmos like me.+++ And I wish it weren’t a gigantic, ancient, tourist-magnet, one hundred and twelve bell frelling ABBEY. However, I’ll take what I can get. And they’re still, with an irony so shiny and sharp it needs a scabbard++++, my best practical choice for a new tower. Hahahahahahahaha. Ouch, that hurts.
^ I’m feeling just a trifle creeped out by my having long ago carelessly blognamed+ it The Force of Destiny.++
+ I invent a verb. I feel it could have wider application however.
++ It could be a lot worse. I could have named it La Traviata or Aida.
+++ Or I could revert to not being able to ring anything. Anything. But we are not considering this possibility. We reject it.
++++ And its name may be Doomblade.
*** With a spectacular escort of guards. Yeep. We never had guards at New Arcadia, but then we didn’t rededicate goddesses either. But Cathy and I crossed three different cordons, getting in—I’m a bell ringer! I kept squeaking, feeling a complete fraud—and two getting back out again. Our favourite was the nice German lady (in the scary guard uniform) who wanted to know about bell ringing.
† Yes. I took Cathy to my voice lesson. And if she tries to write a guest blog about that I will destroy her.^
It was pretty interesting though. I hadn’t thought about this when I asked Nadia if I could bring a friend that Monday, but it was the day after Diana’s memorial and I was going to be another jigsaw for Nadia to put back together, as well as in (fractured) avert mode because There Was Someone Else Listening. It was not my most brilliant lesson—but it was not, in fact, my most embarrassing either. Nadia says sometimes your worst practises and your worst lessons are the most educational—and this one taught me some stuff. Nadia spent some time talking about channelling emotion into your singing. The impulse—my impulse anyway—is to stomp all that slithery, squishy stuff down, and the stomping process is a lot of what breaks you up into jigsaw pieces. Feh. I’ve told you about the frelling chasm between what I can do at home when no one is listening, but where I don’t have all of Nadia’s tricks for getting a better quality of sound out of me, and what I can do for Nadia, whom I want to please and therefore am afraid to get stuff wrong for—I mentioned that I’d torn the heart out of Che Faro over the washing-up and Nadia said briskly, I look forward to hearing it next week. EEEEEEP. This is pretty much the same kind of exciting and same kind of terrifying as the prospect of maybe having a bell tower again. I would LOVE to work on Che Faro with Nadia, but I’ve assumed that was seriously down the line from where I am now. And it probably is, you know? I’ll take it in to her and . . .
^ No, wait, I can’t destroy her, she’s helping me with New Thing.+
+ And in answer to some forum question or other, yes, it will get a title, at least of sorts, as soon as you learn the protagonist’s name, which is in ep nine or so.
†† More *&^%$£”+=}]~#@!!!!!! Our trip was supposed to produce a certain outcome which was going to produce a particular blog post. And we were FOILED by . . . well, never mind what we were foiled by. I’ll get there in the end. And then I’ll write a blog post about it. Grrrrrrrrrr.
††† I tell myself, rain is good. We’re in a drought. We need this rain. I AM SURE I AM GROWING MOULD ALL OVER MY BODY.
A whangblamming thunderstorm and dazzling blue sky kind of day
. . . in more ways than one. In the first place yes, the weather is completely crazed. Because of other issues* the hellhounds got a series of short hurtles today rather than one long and one medium-length one, and trying to fit these in between cloudbursts was all part of the jolly fun. So I’d just had the latest bit of bad news about the weekend’s Adventure** and I was blitzing around the cottage in a dangerous, bruising torpor because the archangels were due ANY MINUTE*** . . . and I finally thought to check my email and the archangels were going to be an hour later than scheduled.
I could have had a little more sleep.
I could have given the hellhounds a little more hurtle.
I could have hung from the rafters screaming about the reality of Sunday travel a little longer.
I did make myself a second cup of tea, left it on the Aga to stew, and took hellhounds for their second sprint of the day. And got back to the latest parcel of little live green things, longing to be potted up and too tender to leave outdoors. I’m hauling in trays of the little ratbags every night—and back out in the morning. I’m running out of trays. And the sweet peas, which arrived weeks ago, are starting to need repotting. ARRRRRRGH.
The archangels arrived†, were here for two hours . . . AND COULDN’T DO ANYTHING I WANTED THEM TO DO. With the exception of a few bits and pieces, and getting the kanji-support Japanese download installed.†† But I need both Pooka and Astarte, both i-gizmos, frelling updated . . . and they couldn’t do it because my broadband is TOO SLOW. Meanwhile, my so-called provider has changed hands, changed its name and logo, raised its prices and lost my Direct Debit details. And claimed never to have received the archangels’ email, attachment and fax from a month ago about upgrading . . . they plainly raised their prices to pay the designer for the new logo which is undoubtedly larger, flashier, and in full colour, and which will cost more money to produce every month at the top of your invoice.
So the archangels sent it all again, and then went back to wrestling with various gremlins, ogres and unidentified snarly things.††† Raphael checked in with my nonproviders in about fifteen minutes. No, they hadn’t received the resend. Half an hour. No, they hadn’t received it. An hour. No, they hadn’t received it, hahahahahahahaha, isn’t this comical? Meanwhile Gabriel had taken the lid off my phone housing, or whatever you call it, where the wires come in from outside, and did a hissing-between-his-teeth equivalent. You will remember when this came up a week or something ago, that there’s nothing I can do about Brit Telecom’s utter indifference to the connectivity trials and tribulations of a small cul de sac in New Arcadia, and BT owns all the wiring. Gabriel stared thoughtfully out the window at the telephone pole that various hysterically-laughing linemen have nearly fallen off. Your Problem Is Obvious. However between them they think that Raphael can bedevil my provider into providing something, and Gabriel can do something about the connection between Outside and Inside.
But meanwhile . . .
I took hellhounds for another sprint and fulminated. Work did not go at all well in what remained of the afternoon. Also meanwhile . . . I had to go to Forza tonight. I’d missed last week’s practise due to family arrivals and Morse-code electricity, the week before was some rangleblagging scheduled cancellation or other, and I’m going to miss next week because they’re having one of their forty-six-and-a-half bell practises.‡ I didn’t want to go tonight. I didn’t want to go a lot. I’m completely demoralised on the subject of tower ringing and I’ve pretty much turned the fact that I can’t deal with the abbey into a self-fulfilling prophesy of doom, and I’m short of sleep, dreading the pogo-stick journey on Sunday, and totally furious with my technology. I’m clapped out on adrenaline and I’m exhausted.
I had to go.
I went.
Oh, and did I mention it was TIPPING it down? On the way over in Wolfgang we were creeping along in third gear because I couldn’t see out of the frelling windscreen.
And when I got there there were people crawling around with cameras. What? Leaving now. And the Scary Man was in charge. Whimper. Why was I ever born?‡‡
The Scary Man swooped down on me and said, Come ring some Grandsire Triples. —Wait! No! I was going to run away!
. . . I actually haven’t dwelled on how bad it’s been, the last few times at the abbey. I had what I thought was that little breakthrough ringing on six bells rather than eight a while back . . . and then it went away, and I couldn’t ring on six either. I am not joking about the demoralisation. If it weren’t that it felt like either go on facing the abbey or give up ringing, I’d be staying home with a good book.
Anyway. Yeah. Clearly I’m setting you up to say . . . it was okay. It was okay. I didn’t ring frelling Grandsire frelling Triples flawlessly, but I was ringing it. I wasn’t just blindly pulling on a rope and doing what my minder was shouting in my ear, which is mostly what it’s been so far. I am going to do this. I am going to learn to cope with the abbey. Which is to say I may even have a bell tower again. I’m sorry it’s a frelling abbey . . . but it remains the nearest tower that rings methods if I’m not going back to New Arcadia and, hint, I’m not, and therefore my best option is an abbey. . . . where things like BAFTA-winning documentary makers come round and frelling film you. Apparently we’re going to be part of a son-et-lumiere deal for some Hampshire festival. We had exactly thirty-seven ringers for our thirty-seven bells and the Scary Man told us all to catch hold which therefore . . . included me. We just rang rounds . . . but I’ve told you about this before: when you’re ringing rounds on four hundred and twelve or even only thirty-seven you pull off and then hold up for frelling EVER while you’re waiting for the other thirty-six bells before it’s your turn again. This doesn’t happen on six. It’s very disconcerting to someone who is used to ringing on six and finds eight a stretch. Oh, and if you see the film . . . I’m wearing a bright turquoise cardigan which would not have been my choice if I’d known I was going to be immortalised. I’d have gone more for dark brown and a bag over my head.
I also have to say a big fat shiny word for Gemma here. She’s an abbey ringer, and she knows what a struggle I’ve been having. She’s the one who’s kept saying, no, no, they will not tell you to go away and furthermore you will catch on. She’s also the one who suggested that I try a different bell for triples because she found it easier to see from . . . and she’s right. I think that’s one of the things that helped tonight. She does keep smiling at me in this Rather Amused Fashion, but I have this effect on some people for some reason. And I was so giddy tonight that I let her convince me to come to the pub after. . . .
I may have a bell tower again. My life is not over.
And the OTHER THING? I HAVE A NEST FULL OF ADORABLE FLUFFY BABY ROBINS IN THE GREENHOUSE. They’re so cute you could die. I rushed out and bought mealworms.
* * *
* Including sleeping really badly because I’m starting (early) to stress out about an Adventure I’m slated for this weekend that I am dreading extremely. So . . . of course. I turned the alarm off and went back to sleep in one fluid movement. The sleep I’d spent the last x hours not getting.
** You cannot go ANYWHERE on a Sunday in this country. They close the roads^, they close the railway lines, they lock all the barn doors before and after the horses have fled, they glue the wheels of all locally-flying airplanes to the runways, and the Sunday dog sled teams are booked years in advance. Maybe if I started walking now. . . .
^ Including bicycle paths and rickshaws.
*** And I’d overslept. See above.
† Gabriel reported that they had been given a very suspicious look by one of my neighbours. Hey, two young men in hoodies. And Gabriel has a two-day beard.
†† Do I even have to tell you that this did not go the way it was supposed to and I would have gotten totally screwed up and berserk if I’d tried to do it myself? Whatever. They pulled out one of their Magic Discs and made the software(s) talk to each other. And now my Learn Japanese site isn’t mostly little empty rectangles.
††† I sat on the floor and knitted. With some help from hellhounds.
‡ The half is the tower captain’s gerbil.
‡‡ Don’t answer that.
Handbells, and further bulletins on comparative ickiness
Niall and I went haring across the landscape this evening*, looking for Curlyewe. Our new lot of handbell ringers are from Curlyewe and last time they came to New Arcadia Niall suggested, despite my frantic gestures,** we come to them next time. ARRRRGH. I do not commute. Commuting is something other people do.***
Niall picked me up tonight, so all I had to do was hold onto my seat.† But Curlyewe is in the same section of enchanted landscape that Tir nan Og†† is, which is to say that you can’t get there from here, and even if you could, you’d miss it in the fairy mist. Maps lie, and signposts move around. Possibly Niall had in mind outrunning the magic.
I guess it worked, since we got there. Eventually. I had been even less enthusiastic about our expedition when I found out they were expecting us to ring at the church. Doesn’t someone have a sitting-room we could use? A nice warm sitting-room with mod cons like an electric kettle and a loo? Whimper. So I was wearing six extra layers and fingerless gloves††† and a good thing too. Although there was both a loo and a kitchen with an electric kettle . . . there was even an electric fire, which Enoch put up on a shelf and angled down at us as we sat in our little circle . . . and I was still freezing to death.
But handbells were rung. Farrell is back at university, but Oliver is beginning to ring little touches of bob minor; Enoch is beginning to get through plain courses of bob minor; and Olga . . . needs more self-confidence, and an iPhone with Mobel on it. She is bringing back horrible memories of Niall and Esme trying to teach me. . . .
But the main thing is, the three of them really aren’t ready to cope alone, and neither Niall nor I have a regular free evening left. I don’t know what we do now. Pity we can’t use a little of that fairy magic and call up a handbell-ringing golem. . . .
* * *
* At an extreme rate of speed. Frell it, honeybun, I want to live to my sixtieth birthday.
** You could see him thinking, poor thing, she has cramp.
*** Yes, I’m a cow.^ But it’s a little like judging a book by its cover. There are too many books. If I really, really hate the cover well, great, there’s one I don’t have to buy. DISCARD. YAAAY. There are too many interesting things to do and see and get involved in. If they take more than twenty minutes to get to, great, there are closer ones. DISCARD. YAAAY.
I admit there’s a sliding scale about this. If Nadia were a bell tower, I’d be looking for something closer.^^ And the Japanese conversation lessons I’m still promising myself after I finish SHADOWS, which is a little perverse, but there’s no way I have brain or energy to start now, will be farther away than Nadia. However, they have helpfully said that a good deal can be done via Skype.^ While they also, equally helpfully, send me occasional links to interesting events at the Japan Society in London.
Anyway. Niall is a nicer human being than I am. If it were up to me, if a bunch of beginners want to learn to ring handbells, they can come to us. A bit like I go to Nadia—or to the language school.#
. . . Oh, and yes, both my Japanese cookbooks arrived. Someone on Twitter (?) asked a few days ago. I think that’s one of the things that got buried in the post-flu avalanche of Missed Stuff. It’s not that the flu was all that severe—it was a ratbag but it wasn’t serious—it’s just that I’m always not quite coping as a way of life, so any spanner in the works really does me in, like a mild wind will knock over a cardboard house. I was going to blog about my new cookbooks—they’re lovely. Maybe I still will. I can pull them off the shelf## and add them to the pile of things to be dealt with NOW. RIGHT NOW. I MEAN NOW.
^ I’m also a cow with ME, and driving is a genuine bugbear.
^^ On a heavy Monday, let’s say when I’ve done a particularly intense stint of work before my voice lesson, and Niall isn’t going to Colin’s that night so if I want to go I have to drive myself, when I get home again I may be just beginning to see the little smoke wisps in my peripheral vision that mean STOP NOW.
^^^ Supposing Skype is in the mood. A language I know—which is to say English—is usually pretty challenging and video? Are you kidding?
# Which may indeed turn out to be too far. In which case I will have to find a Skype pixie/hobgoblin/troll and bribe the frell out of it.
## Yes. They’re on a SHELF. I hope you’re impressed.
† YAAAAAAAAAH. It’s amazing what a 15-year-old Peugeot can do.
†† Er—Tir nan Og, Hampshire. I have rung there occasionally. When I can find it.
††† NO NOT THOSE FINGERLESS GLOVES. They’re still in a bucket in the greenhouse.
Diane in MN
I’ve never had a plastic bag break, but oh how I appreciate the ewww grossness of your situation. I have taken to using plastic gloves–the disposable exam-glove kind–when doing public pick-up duty with my critters, and keeping an extra one in my pocket just in case of some unexpected disaster. So far so good.
I have a large-economy-size box of those disposable gloves because I seem . . . to get myself in icky situations, one way or another, somewhat regularly.^ But as a town dog owner, I go through one to four plastic pick-up bags a day. Even if we get out to the country for the long morning hurtle, the afternoon hurtle is pretty much invariably in town. That’s a lot of plastic. The local pet store, after listening to me whine about it for several years, finally found a source of biodegradable dog crap bags that seem to be genuinely biodegradable even after you’ve read the fine print . . . but it’s still a lot of plastic. I certainly use the gloves . . . but I’m under the impression the bags leave a smaller, you know, footprint.
Re Williams
As someone who milks cows on a dairy farm two days a week, I can tell you that it does wash off.
Well personally I draw AN ENORMOUS THICK LINE, LIKE MAYBE ABOUT A MEDIUM-SIZED ASTEROID WIDE, between herbivore crap and carnivore crap. I’ve spent years of my life mucking out stalls, but I think I’d have trouble working at a kennels, and I’m even a dog person. Herbivore crap is just not that big a deal.^^ I’ve come into direct personal contact with . . . well, an awful lot of horse, including scouring foal, which is pretty unpleasant, cow, which is always sloppy, goat, including scouring goatling, sheep and rabbit. There are probably others. But it never occurred to me in my barn days that washing my hands and putting my jeans and flannel shirts through the washing machine wouldn’t be enough.
PamAdams
I would argue that rolling over in one’s sleep, only to discover one’s face in a pool of kitty vomit, is worse.
Oh gods. Oh gods. I’m not laughing. I’m really not . . . RRRMBGGLK. NOT. LAUGHING.
b_twin_1
| I would argue that rolling over in one’s sleep, only to discover one’s face in a pool of kitty vomit, is worse. |
. . . given the number of people on the forum who have access to animals with copious excrement of all types I humbly suggest we don’t carry on with “mine’s bigger than yours”
::notgigglingeither:: ::NOT:: I don’t think that’s what was happening here, but you’re probably right we want to ensure that it doesn’t. But I’d differentiate between indoor pets and you farmers. I’ve worked on farms, and it’s also a different mindset. So PamAdams’ interesting experience and my exploding dog bag are in the same category, as are you and Re Williams in the same other category.
^ This includes in the garden. I scatter pelleted chicken manure by hand, because it’s quick, easy and efficient that way. The bags all say STERILIZED but I am much happier in gloves somehow. And I once had a carton of mealworms break all over the kitchen floor, and having very promptly shut up hellhounds, scrabbled (most of) the escapees out from under the corner overhang of cupboards and so on by hand. Speaking of mealworms I haven’t checked on the robin’s nest in a couple of days. . . .
^^ Which, since there’s so much more of it, is a very good thing.+
+ I don’t think I’d do too well mucking out the big cat cages at the zoo either.